Kitchen view, below, Foundation for the Summer House was built into the modest swale. Neighbor's rainwater had flooded the back yard for decades. 15 minutes work with man/Caterpillar, water flows in desirable watershed management to the stream.

There is an order to installing landscapes. Here: clearing, contouring, placing paths/edging/gravel, laying sod, next, plantings.
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Another view from the kitchen, below.

Homeowner chose white for the home. Cannot wait for that phase to be completed. My Landscape Design included French doors from the terrace level, into the garden, plywood, bottom right, Of course a few windows and bricks had to be knocked out. Ironically, husbands think a Landscape Designer will waste their money on 'flowers'. The force-of-Tara is quickly realized when they see I've knocked holes into their home. Big holes. Flowers, indeed. One must see flowers easily, and get to them freely.

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Cobblestone edging is used nearer the home, rustic rubbles further away in the Wild Wood.

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Crazed week with this project. Client panicked during the process.

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Once the invasives were gone she wanted groundcovers to be planted first. No. Will trample them to oblivion with equipment/materials if that is done first. "Oh."

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Truly panicked. It's ok. The process is older than Christ's birth, no voodoo. A scientific template. Trying to direct men/equipment/materials, client created great angst for herself, and my team.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Knew before computers/cell phones, sitting in Atlanta traffic on way to a client, 'I must reach a larger audience with the same amount of effort.' Soon after that epiphany I signed my CBS-TV, and, books contracts on the same day.

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Then I read an article in the NYTimes about something called 'blogging'. Saved the article for a year before reading it. Studied all the blogs they mentioned, hired a computer expert they quoted, and attended a blogging seminar.

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Blogging 2.0 has arrived, my knowledge is 1.0. A believer in copying the best historic gardens across the globe it flows into every arena of life. Watching Maria Killam grow her career/blog/life over the past 3 years made its impact. Signed up for a year's course with her blogging expert, Jon Morrow.

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Changes will be slow, plodding is my adored method. Pulling triggers here/there is spice in the mix..

What do YOU want?

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Nothing is too small, too big, or too ego crushing to mention.

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Passion lies in sharing what has filled me to the depths of grace, joy & atonement, the best landscapes created over the last 2,000+ years.

Does your garden tell me who you are? This one does, as all good gardens must.

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Under the Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes, her sister asked, "Have you seen her house." Frances knew, she's asking, "Who is she, what is she like?"

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Hydrangeas do great in pots. Choose mopheads, PeeGee, Tardiva, Limelight, etc.
.Worried about hydrangea's brown sticks in winter? Move on from that chapter, it's too shallow for you. Good Garden Design backdrops normal changes thru the seasons in beauty.
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Focal points change by the day.

Tara Turf, above/below. Garden Design is fierce in this garden.
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Fierce? Simplicity is hard, keeping elements of the poverty cycle is hard, good Garden Design is hard.
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Getting to this iteration of his garden, I know the gardener grew through, and blew through, many life chapters. Many.
.Self -will ended. Gardenese is spoken here. A life language. More, the language of Providence.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Embellishment? Why? What is that about? Lack of confidence, knowledge of the wrong sort, arrogance against Providence?

Tara Turf. Gravel from the local river.

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Century old bricks made in Milledgeville, GA, an hour's drive.

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I designed the buttress copying an antebellum cotton warehouse seen near Atlanta.

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The walled garden was the client's idea.

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It was my good fortune to design & site it.

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Oddly, with total confidence.

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Whence does that come? Truly, a subdivision child ca. 1960, living in a subdivision still.

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Degreed in USA horticulture, not taught how to design a good garden to save anyone's soul. Much less my own.

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Off I went, $20 bills stuffed singly & slowly, somehow paying for 2+ decades of studying the best historic gardens across Europe.

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With this project, 300 acres, I learned what the real focus of those decades had been.

Garden design working with land & home.

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More, mind/body/spirit.

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Land & home, team members with the garden design. Literally, the best performers with the most talent.

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That college degree in horticulture? Training to work against the land, ignore every gift of Providence.

Doubt any of my college professors could give a concise sentence about the style of Henry Repton. In, "Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, Repton wrote:

“The perfection of landscape gardening consists in the four following requisites. First, it must display the natural beauties and hide the defects of every situation. Secondly, it should give the appearance of extent and freedom by carefully disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal every interference of art. However expensive by which the natural scenery is improved; making the whole appear the production of nature only; and fourthly, all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental, or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery, must be removed or concealed”.

Henry would know this garden.
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Beyond the Tara Turf, above, is my best design work. Views across a Natural pasture into woodland. .
Curiously, this type of gardening is perfect for the starter home on a postage stamp with little budget. Instead, that type of home is built with an expensive landscape. Lawn with mowing/chemicals/fertilizers, bushes needing regular pruning & mulching, nothing to shade the house reducing hvac, nor fruit trees to feed the household, certainly not any focal points on axis with the house to feed the spirit.
.Truth, with your full intellect, if you demand more from your landscape you will have it.
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By the time anyone hires me, that choice has been made. Incredible to work for people who have engaged with their own lives. Same, when I lecture. Every chair filled with people who have engaged with their life. They aren't there for me, nor am I, we are there for the same reason as Henry.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pics taken at a jobsite earlier this year.
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The capitalized words? Used in the vintage sense. Underlined sentence at the top? Describing myself on the front end. This has not been a boring ride !
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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Slope is nice, not long. Did you notice the trick creating greater drama & depth?

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Steps lead from wider to narrower.

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Steps are pre-cut, cheaper to install than natural fieldstones.

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Fire ring with circle of Adirondack chairs. A no-brainer siting the fire ring on axis with the steps.

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Chairs are new, curing, and will be stained to flow with color choices from the home's colors.

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More, this is a double axis.

Looking back at the house, below, the steps & fire ring are sited on axis with the gable's peak.

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Landscape design is not voodoo or what feels 'fun' or includes 'stuff' just-because-you-can-afford/rescue-it, but a true science, with sprinkles of art.

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From your home's architecture most landscape design flows.

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The house dictates, then land, then distance from the house aka 'use', then sun/shade.

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When this garden, above, is ready for entertaining how many guests will realize the myriad layers of thought about the steps or siting the fire ring or choosing color for the Adirondack chairs? Doesn't matter, they will know it 'feels' right.

Notice where the Adirondack chairs are sited, in addition to circling the fire ring?

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Perfect distance for resting the feet on the fire ring stones.

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Yes, made the clients sit with me & my general contractor and we adjusted the chairs. Of course the rest of the team was working/digging/installing irrigation and see us sitting with our feet propped up !

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Love my job.

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Another design element, fire ring stones are unmortared fieldstones. Wanted the contrast of rustic, at this distance, to the formality of the home.

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This rustic-ness an element of the 'poverty cycle'. Studying the best historic gardens across the globe for decades it is obvious which elements are consistent in each. And, the poverty cycle is one of those elements.

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Neo-similar to Temple Grandin, I pay attention deeply to patterns in visuals of good gardens.

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If you haven't seen the movie about Temple put it in your queue. Amazing, and humbling, learning from another so different from oneself.

Garden & Be Well, XO Tara

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Took the pics at a job site this spring. When is siting a fire ring not about merely siting a fire ring?Always.

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For a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, become my client,local/on-line.

Getting here was decades. Learning simplicity & the humility to let the site speak without reference to my

skills. Honestly, I wonder how Providence has time for anyone else, attention lavished upon my character defects never wains.
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Nor must I 'own' this site. My pride/ego is rooted in the work. A walled orchard is built, a gravel drive spread, potager planted and more, and with each, they are taken by the owner's hands before my feet leave the site.
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I'm in love with this site, and so is the owner. It is very much the 3 of us. That is how strongly we relate to these acres. She is a good steward of her acres and in return I get to watch her acres in stewardship of her.
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Gifts of loving these acres arrive in many forms & layers. Telling us we are doing the right thing/s.
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Tasha Tudor's favorite line of poetry, 'take joy', in action. Joy is always there, but it must be taken.
.What does any of this have to do with you? Stewardship. Not your stewardship of the garden. But the stewardship your garden has for you. Do you have that in your life? Are you in relationship with your garden? Does it fill you with joy, enrich your spirit, give you energy just seeing it from the windows of your home? Good news, it's not about acres & money. It's putting the garden into relationship with your home & life with historic templates.
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This reads a bit like an altar call. Ironic, she says her deep feeling with her garden is 'abiding', I feel 'atonement' in mine.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic at jobsite this month. Silent Partner, I can see your face reading this and know you understand the metaphorical use of filthy lucre.
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My garden is one of my best friends, unconditionally loving, rich in narrative. A language I can understand. People? No, easier to understand my garden.
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If you want a beautiful garden & home filling you with joy, and causes you to tap the brake pedal, as you look in the rear view mirror heading out, become my client, local or on-line.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Seating to create a gathering spot, figs for summer shade/winter sun over the benches, drystack stone wall cut into a slight slope forcing foot traffic into defined directions, formal boxwood framing pastoral views, tapering stone wall allowing only small machinery into the pasture from this direction, gravel terrace ready for men-trucks-heavy equipment, horses, or a catered soiree for 100.
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And, of course, it must all look a century old, be easy to maintain, and provide interest 24/7.
.When something appears simple, it rarely is. Same is true of people.
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Garden & Be Well, XO Tara
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Pic at a jobsite last week.
.Do you know the maximum pollinator habitat, above? Seriously, can you verbalize what creates the best pollinator habitat above? Answer at bottom.
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Being simple requires each of the decades I've been learning about gardens. Better, being simple in a garden, takes me where Joseph Campbell says our eternity is. Ironic, in this American life/era, to have found my bliss in work.
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